Upon entering Jenny Holzer's solo exhibition, WORDS, one is inundated with text. A portion of the show is filled with framed works, hung salon-style. Other works—text-based drawings, paintings, stone sculptures, and a container of condoms—are arranged throughout the remaining space. In one corner, an installation features smashed stone benches with fractured texts, a large painting turned ninety degrees, and two large LED bars running AI-generated text. One display is prompted by extremist right ideology. The other disgorges joyous descriptions of beauty and love. The saturated corner contrasts the stagnant, monochromatic paper works.
What struck me first was an overwhelming sense of wisdom, often associated with writing. Aphorisms cover everything; some prophetic, written long ago; others investigative, like reproductions of redacted government documents; all relevant to our current context. Topics in Holzer's show, such as gender, war, and the January 6th riots, provoke anxiety through overstimulation, contradictions, and an urgent demand for attention.
The fragile paper works (sometimes obscured by ghostly marks of Holzer's imprinted pigmented appendages), the contemplative benches, and the LED installation (which uses AI technologies we cannot trust) together create tensions in their use of disparate media. Inherent to each media is a brokenness that transcends time, creating unstable meanings. By turning text into imagery, Holzer uses the immediacy of vision in conjunction with prolonged contemplation evoked through writing, to address pressing matters.
-James DeBay
(Friday, 3:00 PM class)
I quite appreciate the way you have successfully recreated the exhibition space in your review. The adept, vivid depiction makes it easy to relate to what is indeed happening in that space. From the physical description of the coordinates within the space to the detailing of materials used supplemented by an interpretation of it all makes it complete and leaves the reader with the feeling of a real, immersive experience. (Priyanka Dey#)
ReplyDeleteJenny Holzer is a master of words, and you greatly captured the effects in which they have. I enjoy how you establish the space and the feelings onlookers experience when reading her works. It's easy to relate to the texts, but each one conveys a variety of feelings. The immersive personal experience viewers experience in her work is a critical component of her work, and you did a great job at painting how powerful it is. (Rachel Genito)
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